"In fact the word was dropped quite a lot this week, and Sherman said it's 'disappointing' to hear so many people use the term. He even went so far as to say it's a more socially acceptable way of calling someone a n--ger.

"Sherman’s comments drew out some real racism online, with people actually dropping the n-word to disparage him, but most people stuck to criticizing him as a 'thug.' Sherman already addressed that term in a column he wrote, but today he went one step further to fire back against that particular criticism.

" 'It seems like it's the accepted way of calling somebody the n-word nowadays. It's like everybody else said the n-word and then they say "thug" and they're like, "Oh, that's fine." ' "

Blogger Jeff Pearlman said the episode demonstrated another fact about television. Erin Andrews, the Fox sideline reporter who interviewed Sherman when made his remarks, was "a deer in headlights. She did not know what to do or what to say or how to respond. Someone in the control booth clearly told her to send things away from Sherman — and she did. In short, she wasn't to be trusted with the situation, and Fox's heads knew it. As much as America responded negatively to Sherman, he was also — after a must-see game — must-see television. Why was he so angry? How far did this go back? Did it stem from something? Would he confront Crabtree afterward? . . . ," a reference to San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree, the target of his rant.

"Andrews, however, was not signed away from ESPN (by Fox) because she's a high-caliber reporter, or because she possesses a unique view of the game, or incredible knowledge. She was hired away from ESPN (by Fox) because guys think she's hot. . . ."

On TV One's "News One Now," hosted by Roland Martin, the Sherman episode led to an exchange between two African American commentators, Martin and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page.

"Page responded that 'You can’t say that black folks aren't making it in television,' and added 'Who can anticipate what the chemistry is that will make people tune in? You can be an Oprah, who's very congenial and open and welcoming, or you can be a… I'm trying to think of a black equivalent to a Bill O'Reilly, but nobody’s really given him a chance.'

"Back on the fourth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, our boss, Chris Peña, used to say: 'We've succeeded when we can shut down the website.' We’ve accomplished our mission, he meant, when identifying, covering, and advancing stories that impact the Latino community is a vibrant part of the company’s DNA. I don't think anyone who follows mainstream media would say that's close to being true today.

"Having Latino journalists in the newsroom is not some bullshit exercise on a diversity checklist, but an acknowledgement that the newsroom should reflect the country, the people you are writing about, the audience. It is, moreover, an obvious practical advantage: Every journalist brings his or her roots and experience to the job, and a newsroom can't afford to be cut off culturally from a huge piece of American life in the 21st century. . . ."

"As a newly minted public company, Twitter is constantly looking at new revenue streams. Its latest quest: Capitalize on demographics.

"In November, Twitter hired marketing veteran Nuria Santamaria to a new position as multicultural strategist, leading its effort to target black, Hispanic and Asian-American users.

"Together, those groups account for 41% of Twitter's 54 million U.S. users, compared with 34% of the users of rival Facebook . . . and 33% of all U.S. Internet users, according to Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project.

"Ms. Santamaria says advertisers want to know more about racial and ethnic minorities on Twitter, from basic numbers to the languages in which they tweet. Last month, Twitter began showing ad agencies data from a coming report saying that Hispanics tweet more often than other users and activity among them rises when the conversation is about technology. . . ."

"The fraternity suffered a public backlash Tuesday after photos were posted over the weekend of party attendees wearing stereotypical clothing, such as baggy basketball jerseys, bandannas and baseball caps worn backward, and drinking out of watermelon cups. Students used hashtags such as #blackoutformlk, #ihaveadream and #mlkparty to accompany their photos.

"In an email statement to the Los Angeles Times, ASU officials said the fraternity, which has been on disciplinary probation since 2012, had been officially suspended. . . ."

The Rev. Jarrett Maupin, an Arizona civil rights activist, told Journal-isms by telephone that the protest was held in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in downtown Phoenix because the university was moving more of its operations to that location.

In a King Day commentary, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly said, " 'Talking Points' believes that minority Americans do — do have a much tougher time succeeding in the marketplace generally speaking than affluent whites, for example. But it all comes down to something that is accessible in America: education and personal responsibility. Black Americans should understand that if they study and work hard they will likely succeed in this country. And that's the message about race that all good and honest people should be promoting."

"USA Today Stars from all over the entertainment industry honored King and wished followers a happy MLK Day on Twitter. They included Justin Bieber, Jamie Foxx and Lenny Kravitz.

"CNN Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin reposted a quote from King's famous 'I Have A Dream' speech — and took a swipe against President Barack Obama at the same time. 'Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card,' she said in a Facebook post Monday.

"RT [television network] The United States Marine Corps was forced to apologize over the weekend after social media accounts administered by the Armed Forces branch published an off-color remark about King. Ahead of the federal holiday held each January in honor of King, the Marine Corps Special [Operations] Command sent a message early Friday over both Twitter and Facebook in which a gunman in full military garb is seen aiming his assault weapon out of an open window.

"KTLA The owner of a Michigan party space canceled a controversial twerking event after the promoter created flyers showing an altered image of King wearing a gold chain and flashing what appeared to be a gang sign. The event, dubbed the 'Freedom 2 Twerk' party was set to be held at Flint's Social Network Event Center ahead of the MLK holiday."

"That photo, of course, stirred an uproar, and Buro 24/7 quickly took the photo down and replaced it with a cropped version that did not show what Zhukova was sitting on. Miroslava Duma, the head of the site, apologized, saying 'we are against racism or gender inequality or anything that infringes upon anyone’s rights.' . . ."

The Asian American Journalists Association had 1,739 members in 2013, projects a net surplus for the year and its national board "remains committed to UNITY's founding mission of supporting newsroom diversity, and firmly believes in the need for an alliance that strives for this," National President Paul Cheung told members on Wednesday.

"2013 was a challenging year for the UNITY alliance partnership, with NAHJ's decision to leave the alliance as well as a vacancy in the organization's executive director position," Cheung wrote, referring to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. "During this past year, including at our December governing board meeting, AAJA continued to maintain our individual relationships with former alliance members NABJ and NAHJ, as well, of course, with UNITY," using the acronym for the National Association of Black Journalists.

"Seven months later, Hannan found the answer — and walked straight into an Internet firestorm.

"His 7,700-word piece, published last week in Grantland, the ESPN-owned sports and pop-culture digital magazine, revealed that the putter's inventor was a mysterious figure named Essay Anne Vanderbilt, a.k.a. Dr. V., and described how Dr. V. had misrepresented her credentials as a physicist. Toward the end of his story, Hannan also revealed something else: Dr. V. was a transgender woman — and she had committed suicide in the course of his reporting on her. . . . "

Responding in Grantland Monday to Hannan's piece, Christina Kahrl said of the transgender disclosure, "By any professional or ethical standard, that wasn't merely irrelevant to the story, it wasn't his information to share. Like gays or lesbians — or anyone else, for that matter — trans folk get to determine for themselves what they're willing to divulge about their sexuality and gender identity. As in, it's not your business unless or until the person tells you it is, and if it's not germane to your story, you can safely forgo using it. Unfortunately, he indulged his discovery. The story's problems include screw-ups you might expect for a writer or editors who aren't familiar with this kind of subject matter — misgendering and ambiguous pronoun usage upon making his needless discovery of Vanderbilt's past identity. . . ."

Kahrl also wrote, "I'm also angry because of the more fundamental problem that this story perpetuates. We're talking about a piece aimed at golf readers. So we're talking about a mostly white, mostly older, mostly male audience that wound up reading a story that reinforced several negative stereotypes about trans people. . . ."

Farhi reported that Grantland's editor in chief, Bill Simmons, "said that 'multiple lawyers' read the story before publication, as did more than a dozen editors and staffers at Grantland and the editor of ESPN.com. All urged publication. But he acknowledged that it was 'an indefensible mistake' that the publication didn’t seek input from anyone in the transgender community. . . ."

When L. Brooks Patterson, county executive in Oakland County, Mich., said in this week's New Yorker magazine, "You do not, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That's just a call for a carjacking," he followed it with, "I made a prediction a long time ago, and it's come to pass. I said, 'What we’re gonna do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and the corn.' "

Moya-Smith continued, "I understand Patterson spat on the face of Detroit, and, rightfully, the nitwitted ninnyhammer should face the fire he flamed, but when someone references smallpox blankets (deliberate extermination), 'herding' Indians (Trail of Tears, anyone?) and then building a fence (Auschwitz? … Hello?), you don't quote passersby about all of the activities of the science center, or how may restaurants they haven't tried yet.

"But this is America, Jack – a red, white and blue monument to willful ignorance, to sweeping under rugs and to skeletons in closets. . . ."

Moya-Smith also wrote, "And that same spirit of resistance is why I became a journalist. There are far too few Native Americans in newsrooms. Seriously, folks, I see more African American coverage, Latino coverage and Asian coverage by newsrooms which have a larger demographic of African Americans, Latinos and Asians. Hearken! We need more Native American journalists at major networks, so when they, the captains of newsrooms, run down that revered Diversity List of theirs you can stand up and boom, 'Your list needs some revision.' . . ."

NPR debuted the series "Views from Latino America" on Tuesday, beginning with a poll that "parsed responses from six separate Latino groups, and also compared the experiences of Latinos born in the U.S. with immigrants. . . . Pieces are being reported by Code Switch, the NPR team covering race, ethnicity and culture, along with reporters from the Science and National desks. Coverage will air all week on both Morning Edition and All Things Considered, with additional perspective at NPR's Code Switch blog. Follow the conversations @nprcodeswitch and #LatinoViews." Nearly one in five (19 percent) Latinos said diabetes is the biggest health problem facing their families.

The editor of a second ImpreMedia weekly has been laid off as the company restructures operations and revises editorial strategy of its weekly publications, Veronica Villafañe reported Monday for her Media Moves column. "María Antonieta Mejía, Managing Editor of San Francisco's El Mensajero, had been with the company more than 8 years." As reported here Monday, the editorial staff of La Prensa Orlando was let go. "El Mensajero, La Prensa and Rumbo will now each have a local editor and will hire freelance writers as needed," Villafañe wrote.

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, "suggested that broadcasting was less critical than ever before to insuring diversity of voices," John Eggerton reported Thursday for Broadcasting & Cable. At a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Media and Social Justice conference in Washington, Wheeler "said the focus should be on 'new network realities,' rather that 'refighting the struggles of the past.' He called it 'outrageous' that there is 'no minority ownership of television stations in America.' " Eggerton also wrote, "Wheeler said the opportunities are to be had in the 'fourth network revolution,' which is broadband. . . ."

Endorsing FCC proposals to revitalize AM radio, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council said in papers filed Wednesday with the FCC, "The survival of minority ownership in broadcasting is closely linked to the ability of AM radio to thrive because over two-thirds of minority broadcast owners are on the AM band. In 2011, the last year for which the FCC released data, racial minorities held majority ownership in 237, or only 6.2 percent of commercial AM stations. Of the 559 broadcast stations (AM/FM/TV) held by minorities, 409, or . . . t 73 percent, of them were AM licensees held by Hispanic and other racial minorities, as categorized by the Commission. Minority ownership in radio, while underrepresented, is actually far higher than in any other FCC-licensed technology. . . ."

C-SPAN2's "After Words" plans to air a discussion with Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of "Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States," hosted by Tanzina Vega of the New York Times, debuting at 10 p.m. ET Saturday. C-SPAN2 also plans a discussion at 7 p.m. ET with Georgetown Law Center professor Paul Butler about his book, "Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice." On C-SPAN3, American History TV plans three programs starting at 8 p.m. on race and the Civil War, including African Americans in Civil War Washington and a class taught by University of Maryland, Baltimore County associate professor Anne Sarah Rubin on how the Civil War was remembered in the decades after the conflict, with a focus on the former Confederate states. A Sunday program airing at 8:30 a.m., 7:30 p.m. and midnight ET examines the racial views of Edith Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt's second wife. Biographer Lewis Gould "argues that a careful reading of her private correspondence reveals racial views that go beyond what he calls the 'genteel bigotry' of her time."

"'20/20' anchor Elizabeth Vargas could be back on the air by Friday," Don Kaplan reported Wednesday for the Daily News in New York. "The 51-year-old ABC News veteran finished a second stint in rehab for alcohol abuse in November and was spotted in the office Monday and is expected to return to the show this week, network sources said. . . ."